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Glitter, Sparkles and Shine!

I have 3 boys and the testosterone is dripping off the walls in my house. I find it hard for myself to make books focused around boy stuff. I love the glitter, sparkle, shine and all the good stuff that comes with it. The other day I downloaded some of the glitter splatters from here and used them in a page of book. My middle son who will be 9 next week got very very upset that I made the page girly by using it. So how can I use that stuff when without it making it look to girly as my son stated?

Perhaps you should convince him that glitter isn't girly. If that's possible . When we were living in Korea teaching middle school, I was impressed with the students lack of an idea of "girly" or "for boys." Everyone (adults included) loved sparkles and pastels (men's ties were usually pastel with sparkles). If you saw the pencil cases lying around you would never be able to guess if it was a boy's or girl's. They seemed to just like what they liked.

Not having any small boys myself, I don't have much experience with scrapping for them.

I'm lucky that I have a daughter and my boys are not hyper testosterone-y. I made a picture of my son and my dad, it had glitter on it and he loved it. However, I try to only add glitter and flowers when it applies. Like it if is the boys paying with legos then there is no glitter but if it is the boys on Easter, there might be glitter. Or I try to incorporate glitter on darker pages, like for me that is halloween, and I add it in black or something. I guess that's another thing, with all the amazing glitter pages available on PixelScrapper I try to limit my glitter to darker colors on my boys pages. I know all of that isn't exactly what you're talking about but I hope it helps in some way.

Oh, and PS when I say glitter and I mean flowers and all thing fro-fro.

Grungy glitter they'd probably like.... Flowers.... not so much. My boys will actually speak up & say "Mum, did you HAVE to put flowers on that page of me/us?" (they really don't like flowers - think it's girly, which it is) I figure since I'm making it for them, I'll comply. That's why I keep the .psd file - esp. when I've done slow scraps that had you put flowers on the layouts - so I can remove them later for my boys.

I can not convince my boys that glitter or anything is for boys. Anything that screams girly is a no for them. I am surprised I am allowed in the house. I guess I just have to keep the work to myself and let them see it when they are older.

Guess they´d like a dragon blowing a red glitter flame from their mouth, or a race car with a glitter smoke path behind it. Or not?

Heather´s idea is also very good. And I learned something: I didn´t know that fro-fro was a valid expression in English We use the same thing with the same meaning in my mother tongue, just the spelling is a bit different

Guess that, if happens that I have human kiddos, I´d like to create them to understand that there aren´t such things like girly and boyish colors / toys / etc, and thinking more like what Marisa says about Korea, although I don´t know if I would be successfull.

I got called out on the glitter splats. I never had that problem until they started school sadly. Older 2 are 13 months apart so my 4 year old is influenced by them big time and they are 10 and 9. I told them they havent seen girly yet until they wear make up and a dress they ran screaming. At least I have two the love baking and cooking so at least I got them in the kitchen helping.

I have another idea.... How about a car with glitter paint? Think maybe they'd go for that? Think red, shiny sports car... Or maybe glitter text? (Honestly, my boys like stuff that looks techy or grungy)

I will give it a try with them good ideas. Hopefully they will see the way on that. The 3 of them have dreams to become alligator wrestlers and dream of working with The Gator Boys and work on a horse ranch. My one son use to have a shirt that said "Mud Is My Favorite Color" and they also have a sign in their room they found at a Flea Market that says "God Please Tell Mama That Real Cowboys Don't Take Baths"

I also have a boy and you cannot convince them that there are no such things as boyish, girlish stuff when they go the school and learn that acctually there are... The only way I can get away, scrapping a page of him with flowers, glitter and frou-frou stuff is when I am included in the LO. Than I can tell him the page is about both of us and those are my parts of the LO... But he is 5, I don't know what will happen when he grows older... Mostly his pages have grunge brushes, splats, stars, brads, paper pieces, chains, cars and, you know, anything that can be called neutral...

I'll just be mean about it. I'll say: "When you scrapbook you can do it with no glitter, or hearts, or flowers. But this is my creativity, and you can't stunt it!" LOL.

My husband doesn't say anything about it. My son is a toddler and thinks glitters are cool. I do try to keep the flowers to the more neutral ones although still pinks and purple, but no princess stuff. I figure that someday when he has the pages it won't be the glitter he'll care about, it'll be the pictures, and journaling. He'll be glad I wrote it down regardless of whether I added pink hearts, or red glitter. Until then, I scrapbook for me. It may be selfish, but I figure if I can take care of and raise my kid to be a man, then he can deal with some glitters.

@ Janet thats how he saw it then ran and told his other brothers. You talk about a gaining up on me. I told them it wasn't changing because of the pictures of them. They were wearing these Mohawk wigs one was red white and blue, and the other two had different colors my brother in law bought them from the Strawberry Festival while he was there.

I thought a black background with some glitter splatter goes well with them in there photo so it stayed.

Having been a teacher and having only brothers and nephews, once they start school, it's all over...the peer pressure kicks in, and that's all she wrote!

I'd say, what's more important, how they feel or using some glitter. You don't want them to feel embarrassed should, god forbid, one of their friends see it one day...or to take away their "I'm strong man" type of attitude! They grow up so quickly...cherish their boyish ways. You gotta laugh! I remember one of my nephews was always saying, "I'm strong man! Look at me! Oh, the many memories!

Save the glitter for your family scrapbook (the feminine pages) and holiday cards...spare the boys! I know that's hard, most kits have only flowers as embellishments, mostly. I saw a post somewhere just recently where someone was complaining of this...that she wanted kits with definite themes, thematic elements, etc. I love flowers, but I agree with her...I like themes.

Good luck!

Oh, P.S. That is so funny what you said...that you're surprised they let you in the house! LOL! That is hilarious! You definitely have the great sense of humor you need with boys!

I have to have a sense of humor if not then I could not handle being around 3 boys plus my husband all day. My only female companionship in this household is the dog. Sadly she will never know what its like to be a woman as she was fixed before she hit heat and able to have kids. Its just me and my estrogen.

Oh I will. Funny when they were like 2 years old each one of them has gotten into my makeup and some how ruined it. Now I dont have to worry about that anymore they head for the hills when they see lip gloss.

I have all boys, but luckily the older two are completely uninterested in my art, my youngest is too young to care, and the third loves glitter, sequins, and paper flowers. He really enjoys when I open my studio to him and let him use whatever he wants. It's always the "girly" stuff he goes for first.